Not Stirred
by dalfron
Summary: Multi chapter pre-ep for 2x08 - loosely ties in with 'Clear Skies' but could be a standalone. The arrival of Barry Allen raises a few eyebrows among the Arrow team.
1. Chapter 1

Shame, Felicity thinks, before the robbery happened this week had been promisingly calm.

Sure, she was still mildly out of sorts from her little en_count_er at Queen Consolidated(as horrifying as that whole situation was, she can't help sniggering at her own awful joke), but things had quietened down dramatically after that. The vigilante task force had nothing to go on thanks to 'the Arrow' wiping the security footage from that night, and they hadn't seen anything to indicate the Count told anyone about Oliver's identity. Not to mention that the drug lord's very gruesome and public death seemed to have acted as a deterrent to other aspiring convicts, and crime rates had dipped sharply. They were okay, and the bad guys were scared: in her expert opinion life was ticking along pretty well.

Trying to convince Oliver of that was a whole different ball game. Even now, while she's at her desk fielding his calls and pencilling in appointments with scores of strangely similar white-haired men in suits, she can see him sitting at his, sulking and generally being very serious. His broody and taciturn levels had been around average following the Count fiasco, but the break in at the office seemed to bring things to a tipping point. Between his family still reeling from his mother's trial, the stress of having his identity threatened, and now his business being robbed...

Well, let's just say she was drawing up new, more accommodating charts for broody and taciturn.

Wrapping her fingers around her new coffee mug – the blue one Oliver bought her that absolutely does not make her feel a little giddy whenever she sees it – she considers the wisdom in getting herself another cup. Not that there's ever a reason to not be drinking coffee, but maybe she could offer Oliver one. He hadn't done much all morning, unless you counted frowning his way through terse phone calls and staring balefully through the glass walls at anyone who dared venture in.

She glances at him, and he's looking at a mountain of papers on his desk like they just insulted his mother. Coffee it is, then.

She's midway through pushing back her chair and pushing down a frankly embarrassing case of anticipatory butterflies when the elevator pings and she hears footsteps on the tile.

Diggle – she gives him a grin, an enthusiastic wave, and a "Dig!" – and a stranger. A stranger who's gazing intently at his phone with a slight smile. A _cute _stranger.

Dig gives her a smile and a nod, before signalling Oliver through the glass with a wave and stepping back to wait. Playing his role as the dutiful bodyguard – just like she should be playing her role as the professional Executive Assistant, she realises with a jolt.

"Welcome to Mr. Queen's office! Can I help you?" It's sickeningly chirpy, but Diggle had counselled that she shouldn't greet business associates with _what's up_, so here she is.

"Oh," the stranger steps forward eagerly, fumbling in his pocket to pull out an ID wallet, "I'm, uh, Barry Allen. Central Police forensic consultant." He holds up the badge with a sheepish smile, before it slips out his fingers and he has to snatch it out of the air with a quiet curse. "Sorry, I'm usually better at that. The – the badge holding, I mean."

She could swear she hears Diggle say, "Shit, there's two of them".

Brushing that off, she adjusts her glasses and opens the calender software on her PC. "Ah, I have you here – one o'clock meeting with Mr Queen. If you take a seat I'll let him know that you're here and he should be right with you." She finishes up with a dazzlingly cheery secretary smile – she's getting quite good at this whole thing – which is not entirely contrived. This Barry guy _is_ cute, after all, and while she might not have any shortage of eye candy in her life... well, she's had to be more subtle since Russia. Which is something she does not think about if she can help it.

"Great. Thanks very much!" Okay, Barry Allen is definitely winning some bonus points here. Looks, presumed brains, and manners to boot? Not bad at all.

"Oh, and – sorry, what was your name?" He's smiling sheepishly again, and while she's usually not a fan of alliterative expressions, she could get used to this one.

"Smoak." Wait, that was only half of her name.

"Felicity Smoak." She cringes. "I didn't mean to sound like James Bond. My name is just Felicity Smoak. I don't like martinis shaken. In fact, I don't even really like martinis. Don't tell my aunt June that, though."

Great, now he's staring at her.

"She's... a big martini drinker. Actually, she's kind of just a big drinker."

He's still staring, but he's now he's smiling, so things could be worse. She clears her throat and tries again while Diggle shakes his head sadly. "Mr Queen will be right with you."

She buzzes Oliver on the intercom and lets him know about the meeting, before she ducks her head behind her computer screen and tries to smother the shame.

* * *

Half an hour later, and Oliver is ushering Barry from the office with that fake business-grin she hates. "Well, thank you for your help on this case, Mr Allen, and please thank Central PD for their assistance in the matter. I look forward to working with you."

"Absolutely, Mr Queen, but believe me Central PD are happy to help. If we're right and these cases are linked, we could get the breakthrough we need."

"Well, if you need anything, please give me a call." Oliver's handshake and smile are friendly, but a friendly dismissal. Probably anxious to get back to brooding, she assumes.

Barry shakes the proffered hand before he heads for the door, looking her way as he goes.

"Pleasure to meet you, Miss Smoak. Say hello to your aunt June for me," he calls with a goofy beam, and her blush is back with a vengeance.

She waits until the elevator doors close to bury her face in her hands. Okay, so maybe attractive men throw off her secretary game just a little bit.

It takes her a moment to realise that Oliver's still hovering, looking at her with that tiniest of eyebrow quirks. "Is... everything alright?" she prods.

"Hm? Yeah. Diggle – we should get going. We'll be back in an hour or so." He's moving for the door with a smile, thankfully not his fake business-grin, so she lets it drop.

"See you, Felicity," Diggle intones, but _he_ has a tiny eyebrow quirk too. Strange.

She doesn't make the connection between Barry Allen and slightly raised eyebrows for a little while longer – until around the time they swap numbers.


	2. Chapter 2

One of the perks of being on Team Arrow – besides the obvious bonuses of a raise and frequently shirtless men – is the feeling that Felicity is really doing some good in the world. She's always had the will to help people, but never the means. That is, until Oliver had a disagreement with a bullet and wound up bleeding all over her car's upholstery.

He's opened up a whole new world for her: a world where she's important. Where her actions have a direct and tangible effect on peoples' lives. She, Felicity Smoak, is actually making a difference, and that feels pretty damn good.

Well, she's usually making a difference. There are times when she gets distracted... take right now, for example.

She's in the lair, meant to be setting up search parameters to locate a particularly vicious loanshark – and she's working on it, she swears. Just slowly. Because once she's done with that, she won't have an excuse to stay sitting at her computer bay. And she has a fairly compelling reason to stay. At this precise moment, that reason is doing pullups high in the air above her head.

The salmon ladder might lend hours of entertainment to slow nights under Verdant, but she has a special place in her heart for that pullup bar.

Beside her, she hears Diggle huff impatiently. He's waiting to spar with Oliver, and can't seem to find any better ways to kill time than hanging over her shoulder and backseat driving. "Can we speed this up? I'm getting dripped on here. Hey Oliver," he shouts upwards, "I didn't bring an umbrella, you know."

She'd admit, the placement of the bar was a bit problematic. Especially since he got all sweaty, and sometimes a stray drop would fall while he pulled himself upwards with those throaty, rumbling growls, and...

Okay, so she doesn't really mind the sweat. She might even like it. Is that weird? It might be weird.

Not that it matters: Oliver's leaping down from the bar, landing far too smoothly and quietly for a man of his size and chest breadth. Her mouth opens before she knows it and oh no, she's speaking.

"You could keep doing that if you want."

Thankfully he refrains from laughing at her while she rubs her temples in embarrassment, instead choosing to bite his cheek and roll his shoulders. Which, if you ask her, is entirely unfair. _Or you could keep flexing, _she almost adds, but derails the urge at the last second.

She shoots Diggle an irritated look for scaring Oliver from the pullup bar, and he throws up his hands in mock surrender. "Okay, just take it easy on me, tough guy," he grins.

"I prefer to to fight brains over brawn," she counters. It's difficult to hide her smugness at that uncharacteristically concise retort, but she manages fairly well.

Still, she thinks, as she watches Oliver sparring with lightning quick strikes and coiled muscles, there is definitely something to be said for brawn.

* * *

They're still sparring when her phone chimes the arrival of an incoming text – from Barry. She's a little embarrassed by how quickly she snatches it up, but hey, nobody's looking, right?

She hasn't heard much from him since he left Starling City, and when she has it's been brief. He always makes sure to ask how thing are with the team – and her – but he seems busy constantly.

That could be a good thing, because she got a little too charmed a little too quick when he walked into their lives with his goofy humour, his honesty, his optimism, and his starry-eyed thirst for knowledge. She was drawn in immediately by their similarities... and, just maybe, by the fact that he was the polar opposite of what she couldn't have.

Sweeping that thought away before she has to examine it, she open her phone to the text from Barry – he's finally gotten around to playing Skyrim, and thanking her profusely for the recommendation. He makes a cheesy joke and she's cracking a smile before she knows it, letting out a snort.

"Something funny?"

Oliver. His body is still facing Diggle, hands raised for combat, but his head is tilted slightly towards her. Diggle sees an opening and swings, but Oliver easily leans out of the punch and bats the incoming fist aside.

"Oh - just a text from Barry."

This time Diggle's fist comes a little closer to Oliver's jaw, and he has to jump back sharply to avoid it. "You two're still talking, huh?"

There's a colour to his voice that she can't quite name. "Yeah, he's thinking about visiting Starling soon."

He throws her a furrow-browed glance rather than responding... which makes her feel compelled to fill the silence, because she's never met a silence she hasn't compulsively talked through. "Is there an issue with that?"

Diggle lands a solid punch to Oliver's side, who only spares a moment to grimace and wheeze before he's back on the attack. "No," he puffs between strikes, "I just didn't think we needed," - he breaks through Diggle's defense - "any help," - he twists Diggle's arm behind his back, - "on any of our cases."

"Oh. We, uh, don't. It's more of a pleasure visit," Wait, no. "_Not – pleasure _pleasure.I mean, if we're speaking in terms of a business:pleasure binary, this would fall under pleasure, but purely in the sense that it's... not business."

Diggle shrugs off Oliver's grip, laughing as he pads off the mats. "Got some first date nerves?" He ruffles her hair on the way past(she hates when he does that that) and she tries her best to throw him an intimidating glare.

"It's not a _date,_" she insists, "And I'm not nervous. Barry and I are friends. Friends visit each other."

"Whatever you say, Little Smoak," he teases, picking up a towel and wiping down his face. "I'm going for a shower."

She's so busy narrowing her eyes at the retreating Diggle, she doesn't realise how close Oliver is until she turns around.

He's right beside her, disorientingly close, fixing her with that stare. The one where his face is more open, his eyes more expressive, where he's Oliver Queen and his face isn't shuttered behind the vigilante's barriers.

"So when's the date?" He's smiling like he's teasing her, but it doesn't quite reach his eyes.

It's hard to scrabble for an answer when he's standing there like that, but she tries her best. "Again, not a date," she chides.

"Good."

It takes a second for that to sink in, for the shiver to trace up her spine and reach her brain. What did he just say? Did the oxygen levels just drop? Because she's having some breathing difficulties.

He seems almost as surprised as she is, and tenses his jaw. How is she supposed to respond to that? What was it supposed to mean, anyway? Now she's just standing here in silence with him staring at her lips, and – wait. He's staring at her lips.

Either she's imagining it, or he's getting closer. Still having trouble breathing. He's less than a foot away, his eyelids heavy, pupils vast.

"Felicity..." it's almost a whisper, his voice rough.

Her exhilarating, terror-filled mental fog is broken by a cough, and they both jump back in an instant.

Diggle's standing awkardly, shifting his weight between his feet. "Forgot the shampoo," he offers, sounding equal parts apologetic and bemused. "On my way out."

It starts to dawn on her what just happened – or almost happened – and, in true Felicity style, she panics.

"Me too," she blurts out, snatching her bag from the table and all but running for the door, "See you later."

('_See you later_'? Seriously?)

If she hears Oliver call after her, she doesn't let on.

..

* * *

_Author's note: _So yeah, I totally skipped a lot of Barry stuff. I wanted to wait to see how it played out on the show, and I liked the way they did it so much it made it hard for me to write my own spin. Now that there's a hiatus, I won't have pesky canon things making me doubt my plotlines.

Also – do they even have a shower in the lair/club? They do now.


End file.
